Bullied By Luke Hemmings.

Chapter 19

There was only ten minutes left of art until it was lunch. I hurried, wanting to finish my final piece before school ends. For this whole term, we've been learning about things with flowers, and different techniques. We all did a few drawings of flowers with different techniques, but my favourite was the drawing I did of lilies using water colours.

I finished with just a few minutes to spare, feeling quite proud of how my final piece turned out. When the bell went and people hurried out for lunch, I took my time. Like usual, I didn't go to the canteen, and walked across the field to the spot under the tree I've been sitting at quite a lot lately. I sat down on the grass, resting my back against the tree trunk, enjoying the shade after being in the sun for most of the day.

About half way through lunch, I decided to find Ashton. Yesterday after I had text him, we had both been talking, but it seemed weird. Not because of the fact that I have to tutor Luke, it just seemed all awkward, and I had to keep trying to keep the conversation going. After a while, I finally found Ashton. He was walking away from his friends, about to go inside the school.

"Ashton!" I called out, making a few people turn and look at me. I looked down and quickly followed Ashton, reaching him just before he went inside.

Ashton was acting weird. He wasn't really looking at me, just looking past me.

"Are you okay?" I asked. The bell went off, which meant we had to return into school for our last lesson.

"I, can we talk after school?" Ashton asked me, chewing on his lip.

"Yeah, sure." I agreed. He looked at me, still chewing his lip, before following the crowd of people into the school building. After standing there a bit confused for a while, I eventually followed everyone inside.

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I sat in my maths chair, trying to think about what Ashton wanted to talk about. 'I, can we talk after school?' The whole time he spoke, he hardly looked at me. He seemed nervous saying it, and started chewing on his lip. Too consumed in my thoughts, Mr Smith had called me.

"Caitlyn?"

"I, sorry." I apologised. Instead of repeating his question, he just shook his head slightly and asked someone else the question.

When the lesson ended, I left quicker than I normally would; just wanting to know what Ashton wanted to talk to me about.

When I got outside of school, Ashton was already standing there waiting for me. His back was facing me, his hand on the back of his neck.

"Ash?" I asked, walking over to him.

He spun round to face me. "Hi."

"I'm getting quite nervous here. What is it you wanted to talk about?" I asked him.

"I, I don't really know how to say it." Ashton started, playing around with his hands.

My heart dropped, a lump forming in my throat, thinking he might say what I thought he was going to. I managed to swallow it back. "Just say it." I told him, my voice quiet.

"Well, this is going to be so hard to say. Okay, well, I just think that we were so much closer with each other when we were best friends. It's really hard to say, because even though I'm saying it, I like you, so much still. I have for ages, and then when I finally picked up the courage to ask you on a date and you agreed, I was so happy. But after that, things went weird. I'm not sure; I just think that we're so much better as friends." Ashton said the words I really didn't want to hear. I could feel a tear about to fall and quickly reached up to wipe it away.

"If this is about yesterday, I have no plans at all for the two weeks. I'll make more time for us Ashton. I'm really sorry." I told him, wiping another tear that had fallen.

"Don't apologise. It's not because of that. Just because I'm saying that I, that I think we should break up, it doesn't mean I don't want to be your friend still." Ashton told me.

"But it's never like that, is it?" I asked him. Things like this happen all the time; the boy says he wants to be friends, but they're not friends. They hardly talk; if they do it will just be awkward. I've liked Ashton since I was about 14, and now I'm 17. When he asked me to be his girlfriend, I was so happy, and we're already breaking up?

"I want it to be like that. Just because I'm saying we should break up, doesn't mean we can't still be best friends." he told me.

I tried to reply but couldn't, if I did I would just break down into tears. So I stood there, just nodding my head.

"Please don't be upset. I didn't want to do this, I just thought it was the best thing to do. We were such good friends; dating each other didn't feel the same. Please don't be upset." Ashton repeated, reaching forwards and brushing his thumb under my eye, wiping a tear away.

My heart was hurting, my head was hurting, I needed to get home. I tried to speak, but couldn't, and just rushed away. I ran past the bus stop, not wanting to have to wait. My feet were taking control of my body, as I rushed past people to get to my house.

After what felt like running and not getting anywhere, I got to my road, making my feet go even quicker. Tears were streaming down my face now. I got to my door, fumbling through my bag in search of my door key. My hands were shaking, as I reached up to open the door, I dropped the key.

"Shit!" I said loudly, rubbing my teary face with my hands before picking up the key. After my shaky hands finally opened the door, I ran straight up to my room, tears falling from my face. I collapsed onto my bed, crying my eyes out.

Ashton and I weren't going out for long, but after liking him for years, this felt horrible. Maybe he was right, we were just meant to be friends, but that was just making me even more sad.

After about half an hour of lying on my stomach crying into my pillow, I heard banging at the door. I ignored it for a while, until it got louder and more frequent. Frustrated and really upset, I threw my pillow onto the floor as I stood up, storming down the stairs. I hadn't even looked in the mirror, I probably looked terrible.

My shaky hands reached for the door handle and I opened the door. Luke pushed past me and walked inside.

"What the fuck Caitlyn? I was waiting outside school like a prick for half an hour and you didn't show! I had to wait for fucking ages for the bus to get there, and then when I finally get here, you take forever to open the door!" Luke exclaimed.

When I just stood there, not saying anything, Luke looked over at me. His frown disappeared within seconds, a look of worry taking over his face.

"Caitlyn? What's wrong?" he asked.

I just wanted to be alone, and Luke continued to talk while I stood there silent. He was talking so much, keeping on repeating my name, trying to ask me what had happened.

"Oh Luke, just fuck off!" I shout, pushing him out the door, slamming it closed behind him. Reaching my hands up to wipe my face, I slid down the door. As I sat on the floor with my head buried into my knees, the knocking started up again.

AN:
Writing this chapter was actually making me quite sad; I couldn't decide whether I actually wanted it to happen or not.